The Gravettian Culture: Ice Age Mammoth Hunters

In the depths of the ice age in Europe, at the end of the Upper Paleolithic, the Gravettian saw incredible societies of mammoth hunters thriving across Europe.
They lived in caves, rock shelters, and open-air settlements in mammoth bone houses and developed surprisingly complex and sophisticated societies. Their burials at sites like Dolní Věstonice and Sungir could include grave goods like ivory beads in enormous quantities, suggesting the emergence of social inequality.
They were the first people in the world to use ceramics, making small figurines of animals and people. They also made the world-famous Venus figurines in stone, ivory, and moulded from clay. So who were these people? Where did they come from? Where and how did they live? How could they create so much art in the depths of the ice age? And what ultimately happened to them?
This is the awe-inspiring story of the lords of the mammoth steppe; the Gravettians.

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*Sources*

Posth, C., Yu, H., Ghalichi, A. et al. Palaeogenomics of Upper Palaeolithic to Neolithic European hunter-gatherers. Nature 615, 117–126 (2023)
Bennett, E.A., Parasayan, O., Prat, S. et al. Genome sequences of 36,000- to 37,000-year-old modern humans at Buran-Kaya III in Crimea.
Baker, J., Rigaud, S., Pereira, D. et al. Evidence from personal ornaments suggest nine distinct cultural groups between 34,000 and 24,000 years ago in Europe
The Death and Burial of Sunghir 1 - E. Trinkausa and A. P. Buzhilova 2010
The origin of the Gravettian - Janusz K. Kozlowski 2014
The symbolism of breast-shaped beads from Dolní Věstonice - Martina Lázničková-Galetová 2017
Upper Paleolithic ceramic figurines - Pamela B. Vandiver 2022
A Critical Reassessment of Pavlovian Art and Society - Rebecca Farbstein 2013
Identity and fear – burials in the Upper Palaeolithic - Simona Petru 2019
Upper Paleolithic Venus Figurines and Interpretations of Prehistoric Gender Representations – Vandewettering 2015
The Gravettian burials at Grotta Paglicci – Ronchitelli et al 2015
Self-Representation in Upper Paleolithic Female Figurines - LeRoy McDermott 1996
Hunters of the Ice Age: The Biology of Upper Paleolithic People - Holt & Formicola 2008

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*Video Chapters*

00:00 The Gravettians
01:50 MagellanTV
03:00 The First Europeans
05:38 Gravettian Origins
08:50 Gravettian physiques
11:23 Gravettian mobility
14:00 Venus Figurines
18:00 Personal ornaments and culture
19:18 Dolní Věstonice
22:44 The burials at Sungir
25:05 Gravettian social inequality
26:47 The last Gravettians

[DanDavisHistory]

Thanks for watching my video. Let me know if you'd like to see any other Paleolithic stuff.

[jeremyjacobite]

Nobody gives more life to our ancestors than you, Dan. Thank you.

[rollo]

I commented years ago i was injured at work and came across your channel since then mate im glad people have seen and appreciated what research and effort you put into these and your starting to take off. Your passion for history shines through, more power too you pal.

[CatchingJeremy]

Absolute banger, as always. Paleolithic society vids always fascinate me, since it always seems that their cultures and ways of life persist for far longer periods of time than our cultures tend to in more recent times.

[noterrormanagement]

I did NOT expect Gravettian men to be this tall! It definitely caught me by surprise, i had to do a double take to see if i misheard. Excellent video! Please do more of pre-anatolian farmers Europe!

[seansullivan]

Fantastic video!  I have spent a lot of time replicating Gravettian, and Solutrean tools, art, and material culture. It is awesome to see these fascinating people getting some attention.

[mydknight]

When I see the Venus figurines I see a representation of a woman that has birthed several children. This seems consistent with the belief that fertility is what was being venerated with the figurines. One can only imagine why this was done but it's not hard to imagine that in a world where life was harsh and probably short, the women who brought new life into the world were held in high esteem. Thank you Dan for another excellent presentation of these fascinating ancient cultures.

[willbass]

To think they persisted for 10, 000 years in that environment.
Damn amazing.

[justanamerican]

Today, with the population bordering on obese, our models are SKINNY. In the depression when people were lean, the models were plump. Maybe, with an active life full of activity and limited caloric intake, maybe the plump figurines were a response to their conditions.

[andresaltosaar]

Thanks kindly, Dan, for another spectacular installment!

[BenStimpsonAuthor]

Dan you do such great high quality work, I really appreciate you do all of these narrations yourself and havn't gone down the AI route so many others have. Looking forward to listening to this!

[troterelante]

Hey @DanDavisHistory great quality content mate. As an Archaeologist myself specialised in Prehistory I wish we had a content like this back then at the University. Bringing the Gravettian to life is a remarkable feat, because you provide a full 365 degrees picture of it all. Thanks again for this.
Jose

[badmiker]

Fantastic! So good to see 'cave men" looking so stylish! Despite the difficult environment, I think that the Venus figures show that these people valued, and aspired to their best life: beautiful clothes, ornaments, bodies. Their stories, songs and partying must have been amazing too!

[JustGrowingUp]

Loved the video!
I really appreciate that stone age and copper/early bronze age societies receive so much attention on this channel.

[robscoggins]

Thank you Mr. Davis. Through your presentations I’ve embarrassingly learned more about prehistoric European archaeology from you than from my European Archaeology course in university. That’s not to say I had a bad professor, he was actually very good. But there has been so much more advancement in the field since those days.

[Kieran_McNally]

Bingeing the paleolithic content at the moment. More please.

[necro]

As far as I know, the self-portait hypothesis for the Venus figurines refers specifically to pregnant women, as the anthropologist who came up with it, was pregnant herself and noticed looking down at her own body, that the proportions of the figurines match the proportions she observed. She provided pictures taken from her perspective and replicated the same angles taking photos of the Venus... the side by side comparison was quite convincing to me, especially when considering that opportunities of looking at your own face for prolonged periods for reference, were rare when compared to later cultures with access to mirrors...
It also seems quite convincing, that, given the active life style of the Gravettians, women in the middle and late stages of pregnancy, would probably have the most time to spend on exploring artistic expression? At least as a hypothesis for how those figurines were originally invented, I think it is still the most convincing one I've read so far...
Of course, over thousands of years of continual making, it is likely, that these figurines would have had multiple purposes... possibly of representing a mother/fertility goddes, amulets for a safe pregnancy/birth, as well as an educational tool for girls, when reaching fertility and maybe even the earliest form of porn...

[carrdoug]

These Venus figures are clearly matronly (post pregnancy, mothers). What's fascinating to me is that these figures almost certainly represent individuals that would have existed within the community (everyone today recognizes this body type). The fact that these individuals existed highlights how successful these Paleolithic hunters had to have been. (If we were scraping buy, waiting for someone to invent agriculture. It would have been impossible for these women to exist.)

[Naturalook]

Simply superior work, Dan Davis.... Excellent research, and delivery... you painted a very clear image of the progression of humanity. I do take exception with the take of it being such a hard life. People under stress do continue being creative, but they do not make frivolous artifacts, even as they incorporate difficulty into play. ie; "Ring around the rosy, pockets full of possies, ashes, ashes, all fall down" is a kids rhyme about the black plague.

[kamilaferens]

HOW I'VE WAITED FOR IT!! Thank you so much!